Baking and Reading

We had a few inches of snow yesterday and to note the occasion I made delicious baked donuts using this recipe and this pan, which had conveniently been delivered to our house a few days ago by Fedex.  I only made six donuts and Ben ate his two instantly while I savored one in a more leisurely fashion and wrapped one up to save for afternoon tea.  Ben took the other two over to a neighbor's to keep us from temptation, which was both sad and good.  I'm sure another snow day will be arriving soon, as February and March are the snowiest ones in these parts, and more donuts will be on the menu.   

My good friend Paula had a birthday last week and while we were limited to a Zoom cocktail hour as a celebration, I did make her a "from scratch" three-layer German Chocolate cake, which happens to be a favorite of both Paula and myself.  I used the original Baker's chocolate recipe which calls for German Sweet Chocolate, which was not to be found even when I ventured into the big Big Sooper's, so I made do with semisweet chocolate and extra sugar, as recommended by Lord Google.    

It was fun to make and turned out pretty great!

And Paula was a happy birthday girl.  In case you're wondering, she didn't eat the whole cake herself but shared it with her mother and her husband, Raymond.  Oh, and sent half back to me and Ben!  We offered some of ours to Paul and his roomates, but had plenty for ourselves. 

I've had some good luck finding engrossing books recently.   On a whim I picked up And They Called it Camelot from the New Fiction shelf at the library went I dashed in to pick up a book I had put on hold, and it was quite a good read.   It's a first person fictional account by Jacqueline Kennedy of her life with John Kennedy and Ari Onassis, which didn't sound too promising, but grabbed me from the first page and had me hooked.   Reading it reminded me of how limited the career and life choices were for white wealthy women back in the early 50's.  What could a person like Jackie do except to marry well?   

Now I'm "captured" by a thriller recommended by my fellow blogger Rian, The Woman in Cabin 10.  I'm just a few chapters into it but can already tell that it's going to be be hard to put down. 

During my walks I'm listening to Barack Obama read his A Promised Land,  which is a nice treat for getting out to exercise.  

In addition to baking and reading, I have some sewing projects underway, but that's a story for another day!